Last week I managed to polish off an important assignment and with a little free time as well as Mother’s Day coming up, I decided it was finally time to get out the stamps and dies and make a card.

I used the Make the Day Special challenge for inspiration. This month is a colour challenge and I chose to use the gorgeous palette on the far left.

I’ve also finally invested in some watercolour pencils and decided to pluck up the courage to use them for the first time! This is the card I came up with:

I know my colouring skills have a looooong way to go but what I was imagining was a lot worse than the actual result so I’m pretty pleased. When I stamped the fox I clearly wasn’t paying attention and some of the edges came out but I quite liked it so added in some colour over the top. I’m learning to embrace imperfection! Unfortunately, the star photographed quite dark but in reality is more of a lilac colour. The stamp is from Papermania that I picked up a while ago from a bargain bin (can you tell I’m a student?!) and the frame is from Polaroid Fun Creative Cuts by Mama Elephant. The sentiment is from Altenew’s Label Love which has fast become one of my most used stamp sets.

This morning, I watched the teaser video for the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign being launched by Sport England as part of efforts to increase exercise participation levels amongst women. The advert will be released in full on prime time TV tonight, but you’ll find a link to the teaser at the bottom of this entry.

‘This Girl Can’ has the potential to have a hugely positive effect on participation, because it is trying to tackle the biggest obstacle for many women: themselves. Sport has always had a huge impact on my lifestyle, my time, and my self-image, but it’s obvious (even to someone who loves it) that getting girls active is now a major issue. ‘This Girl Can’ is trying to reduce the ‘fear of judgement’ that seems to be the main factor discouraging women from participating in sport. In my role as a hockey coach, I’ve seen clear differences…

Wow it has been a long time since my last post but unfortunately real life comes before my blog and there is lots going on at the moment! So on with the second part of the Superhero Bonanza.

Of course I needed to make a card and of course it had to be superhero themed! I must admit that I find male cards quite difficult to make. Most likely this is because I am drawn to anything floral, delicate, and with ribbon. However, I’m pretty pleased with how the card turned out and it went down really well!

For the first time I downloaded some digital papers and printed them out at home. I was pleasantly surprised out how it looked because I was worried the quality on a normal piece of paper wouldn’t live up to the sturdy scrapbooking paper I usually use. The background paper came from TheDigiParty (I’ve just had another look at the shop and they also have loads of other bits and bobs if you’re planning on throwing a superhero themed party). On top I just layered some navy card stock and a neutral coloured chevron paper and stamped my sentiment on top. I absolutely love this Altenew Label Love set. They are so versatile! I wanted to keep the card really simple. Sometimes I find it a struggle and want to keep adding things fearing that it might look too “homemade” (read: rubbish) but I’m really pleased with it!

It really has been a while since my last post, but that’s not to say that there hasn’t been lots of crafting going on in the background! Unfortunately, uni work has really taken off which means that instead of crafting and blogging, I have been crafting and reading/note taking/assignment writing. Guess which one is more fun?!

The beginning of the month saw a big birthday for my boyfriend. He is a huge fan of superheroes (I can’t quite emphasise just how much of a fan he is) so the theme of his presents was an easy one to choose, to say the least!

I decided on making him an iPad case and started researching on Pinterest for ideas and tutorials. There are a lot out there but when I came across this one I knew I had a winner.

This one seemed much more useful than all the pouches I had found as it was sturdy, could stand up, and looked like a ‘proper’ case. The tutorial also made it seem doable — always a plus! I had so much fun finding fabric and settled on this one from Frumble. I loved that it wasn’t just ‘superhero themed’ but actually feature the DC Comics characters.

Putting it together was relatively straightforward. Obviously it isn’t perfect; my sewing skills have a long way to go but I am really rather proud of it!

I haven’t had much time to finish any crafty projects recently. I’m currently in the middle of sewing a birthday present but along with that, studying, and a lot of Ikea flatpack I haven’t had a lot of time for anything else! I thought I would do a round up of some finds on Pinterest instead. This week: Kraft cards. I don’t know what it is about Kraft paper but it is definitely what I use most frequently as a card base. However, I often find it difficult to find new ways to use it so hopefully this will spark some inspiration for you as well!

Today’s post has been inspired by Pinterest. I can assure you that there will be a lot more Pinterest-related posts; I am addicted.

I always find that I can never keep on top of cleaning. Doing a weekly clean is a daunting task and usually gets put off, especially when there is studying (and crafting) to be done.

There are lots of cleaning tips on Pinterest, such as the best way to clean certain areas of your house and homemade cleaning products. I’ve started putting together my own board to keep track of all the amazing ideas.

I came across lots of different cleaning schedules that people have made and wondered why I hadn’t thought of doing that before! It breaks down the task of cleaning the house into manageable daily chunks. I was inspired in particular by this schedule:

I amended it slightly to suit my needs and came up with my own:

The new cleaning routine started today and I have to say that this feels do-able. Now I just need to stick to it!